"And the Second Angel poured out his vial into the sea; and it became blood as it were of a corpse; and every living soul died in the sea"  Verse 3.

The Seven Spirits of the Deity had all gone forth from the Nave on a mission of Divine wrath upon the inhabitants of the Apocalyptic earth (ch. 8:13). While the first angel was operating in France, the other six were not idle spectators of the flesh-devouring phenomena of the "grievous and malignant ulcer". Had the six been inoperative elsewhere, the other powers of the Great City would have left France to perish of the ulcer, while they maintained a strict neutrality, and confined themselves exclusively to their own internal affairs. But this, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, in harmony with the Apocalyptic program, is preparing things for their appointed and predetermined end, would not allow. They had to adopt a policy that would implicate them in the dire and woeful calamities of the time. All the powers of antichristendom were guilty before Heaven - they had all, in the 1260 years of the Papacy that had passed since its institution by Justinian, "committed fornication with her;" and their populations had all "been made drunk with the wine of her fornication" (ch.17:2; 18:3): why, then, should they not be made to "drink the wine of the wrath of the Deity poured un-mixed in the cup of his indignation", as well as the same class of worshippers of the Beast's Image in the Gallic Tenth of the Great City? No reason to the contrary can be adduced: and therefore, the Seven Spirits of the Deity were all engaged with the several powers of the earth and habitable in preparing a situation, which in due time and order, would bring them all under the operation of the wrath decreed against them.

While the wrath of the first angel-period of the third woe, or seventh trumpet, was generating and developing the grievous and malignant ulcer in the body politic of the Great City, the Seven Spirits were operating upon the British Power, and preparing it for the work of wrath upon the Apocalyptic sea; which, in this place, is representative of all the countries of "Babylon the Great" accessible to ships of war.

The pouring out of the vial into the sea, indicates that a maritime war would commence with the outpouring; and that, as the sea was to "become blood as it were of a corpse," the war would be of unparalleled severity. To become blood as it were of a corpse, was also indicative that no hostile navies could ride the waves, except the ships of the power used as the agent of the Seven Spirits: That all naval life and activity would become stagnant, as the blood of a corpse, which is incapable of circulating, as during life, through the arterial and venous channels of the body. All the war ships of the Great City found at sea would be destroyed by the potential minister of wrath; or compelled to take refuge beyond his reach, or to shut themselves up and not to venture out to sea. The ocean being thus cleared of the war ships belonging to the Powers of Babylon the Great, every sea-faring living soul was, to all intents and purposes of war, dead. When "Britannia ruled the waves" there was no living soul afloat to fire a gun to her dismay. The French upon the land, and the British upon the sea, were the contemporary agents of the Seven Spirits for the tormentation of the worshippers of the Beast's Image in the second, third, fourth, and fifth vials of the sanguinary and scorching wrath of the avenger.

The portion of wrath committed to the Angel of the Sea began to be poured out in Holland on the landing of the British there, Feb. 26, 1793. It continued to pour concurrently with the third, fourth and fifth vials, for twenty years, with no intermission save the brief and deceptive peace of Amiens in 1802.

The author of Modern Europe in writing of this period says, "In the grand drama that was at this time acting on the theatre of the world, all the powers of Europe were unhappily called to sustain a part: but France was unquestionably the prime actor, and her history must therefore be allowed to take the precedence of that of every other country. We may now be allowed to say, that it had been happy for England, and for the Continental States also, had she stood aloof at this awful crisis, as a mere spectator of the horrid tragedy, occupying an attitude of self-defence. Secure in her insulated situation and garrisoned by her wooden walls, she might have bid defiance to the volcano, and remained secure amid the tempest. It was her policy also to remain at peace; but unhappily at this time, the sympathies of the different parties in England were so powerfully excited by the state of things upon the Continent, that the dictates of sound reason could no longer be heard; and the wickedness of the ruling party in France was certainly calculated to awaken the horror of men in an extraordinary degree: the consequence was that the original friends of the Revolution became mute; the once sacred name of liberty itself became offensive; the alarmists rose suddenly in number and force; clamors and indignation sprang up in every quarter: and amid the wild uproar of false terrors and of virtuous sympathy, the nation was plunged headlong into a state of war".

Thus the Seven Spirits of the Deity, ordinarily styled "Providence, operated upon parties in France and England for the development of the predetermined wrath of the Second Vial. No doubt England and the Continental States would have escaped the awful castigation of the vials, if she had stood aloof; for without her subsidies of many millions sterling, they could not have equipped and brought their armies into the field, to have fought the battles of the third, fourth, and fifth vials, through which they were to drink blood, be terribly scorched with fire, and to gnaw their tongues for pain. If she had stood aloof, the war and mercantile navies of Denmark, Holland, France, and Spain would not have been annihilated; she would not have lost her hundreds of thousands in the continental wars against the French and their allies; and she would not now be groaning under taxation, and a national debt that will never be paid. But she could not stand aloof. Her inevitable de-stiny was to play the part in the terrible tragedy of the vials which the wisdom of Deity had assigned her, and for which she had been prepared. Nations cannot do what they please, any more than individuals. The great manager of the world's theatre is the Lord Jesus Christ, whose dramatic program is the Apocalypse or Revelation given to him by the Father; the nations and powers are mere performers played off by him against one another for the denouement of the plot Divinely conceived. He creates war and makes peace; and without his permission "the powers that be" can do neither. He would not allow his judgments upon the men of the Beast's Sign, and the worshippers of his Image to be stopped, or interrupted even, for the comfort and commercial prosperity of England, and her Harlot Church, and nation of sectarian abominations. He paid no regard to their stereotyped petition of "Give peace in our time, O Lord!" He paid no respect to the twenty-six episcopal hypocrites in the upper house of Parliament, who prayed for peace, and voted for war. Such a nation had to be punished, as well as their brother-hypocrites and blasphemers upon the Continent. England, therefore could not stand aloof; but was compelled by inexorable necessity to send her children to the shambles, and to share in their miseries she was instrumental in inflicting upon the world.

The words, "the sea became blood as it were of a corpse; and every living soul in the sea died," are amplified and somewhat expounded in the language of the Second Trumpet prophecy. In this, the sea became blood; the creatures that were in the sea, and had life, died; and the ships were destroyed. All this resulted from the great Genseric Mountain burning with fire, being cast into the same sea as the contents of the Second Vial. The consequences were similar, but upon a grander scale. The Vandal power destroyed the power and commerce of Rome from the sea; and afflicted its maritime provinces with sanguinary incursions. A like result ensued through the agency of Britain, which annihilated the maritime power, commerce, and colonies of the countries of "Babylon the Great". The following summary will be suggestive to the reader of the extent and severity of the wrath of this vial. In 1793, the greater part of the French fleet at Toulon was destroyed by Lord Hood; in June, 1794, followed Lord Howe's great victory over the French off Ushant; then the taking of Corsica, and nearly all the smaller Spanish and French West Indian Islands; after this, in 1795, Lord Bridport's naval victory, and the capture of the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch; likewise, Soon after, the capture of a French and Dutch fleet sent to retake it; then, in 1797, the victory over the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent, and that off Camperdown over the Dutch; then, in succession, Lord Nelson's three great victories of the Nile in 1798, of Copenhagen in 1801, and of Trafalgar in 1805. In this long naval war, extending from1793 to 1815, it appears from James' Naval History that there were destroyed altogether near 200 ships of the line, between 300 and 400 frigates, and an almost incalculable number of smaller vessels of war and ships of commerce. As Dr. Keith remarks, the whole history of the world does not present such a period of naval war, destruction, and bloodshed. In the figurative language of the prophecy "the sea became blood as it were of a corpse".

It will be unnecessary for me to follow the British in their descents upon Holland, the maritime provinces of France and Italy; and their campaigns in Portugal, Spain, Belgium, and so forth. These all belong to the wrath of the second vial, consummated by the famous battle of Waterloo. The reader can consult the copious histories extant of these things, as illustrations of our subject, and of the meaning of the words, "our God is a consuming fire".